‘Flawed’ BBC censured over dropped Jimmy Savile investigation, but no evidence of a cover-up found

The decision to drop a Newsnight investigation into claims Jimmy Savile was a paedophile was ‘seriously flawed’, an independent review has concluded, but accusations of a cover-up have been rejected.

Nick Pollard, a former executive of Sky News, said the BBC had descended into ‘chaos and confusion’ over a documentary exposing Savile as a paedophile broadcast ten months after Newsnight journalists were ordered to shelve their own report.

In his review, Mr Pollard said the corporation’s management had proved ‘completely incapable of dealing’ with the fallout from the story, reserving special criticism for former director general George Entwistle and director of news Helen Boaden.

Mr Entwistle resigned after just 54 days in the job last month while Ms Boaden is due to return to work tomorrow having stepped aside pending the findings of the Pollard Review. Her deputy Stephen Mitchell has, however, resigned.

Mr Pollard criticised Ms Boaden for being ‘too casual’ in raising a possible conflict with the Newsnight investigation and tribute programmes for Savile with Mr Entwistle, then head of programming, at an industry lunch last December.

But there was ‘no undue’ pressure on Newsnight editor Peter Rippon to drop the Savile story, Mr Pollard said.

‘He made a bad mistake in not examining the evidence properly,’ he continued.

‘The decision to drop the original investigation was flawed and the way it was taken was wrong but I believe it was done in good faith. It was not done to protect the Savile tribute programmes or for any improper reason.’

The Jimmy Savile affair caused ‘chaos and confusion’ at the BBC (Picture: AP)

The report also criticises Mr Entwistle over an email sent to him two years prior to becoming director general in which he was warned over the ‘darker side’ to Savile’s life.

Mr Entwistle, who was given a £450,000 payoff – twice what he was entitled to – after leaving his role, told the inquiry he had not read the email.

In response to the review, the BBC Trust said ‘long-term failings’ of the corporation’s management had been exposed.

‘The BBC portrayed by the Pollard Review is not fundamentally flawed, but has been chaotic. That now needs to change,’ the trust said.

It recognised the review had not found ‘anyone involved in the making of the tribute programmes knew of any allegations against or rumours about Savile’.

‘Nonetheless, it is clear that there were serious failings in editorial oversight and management control that now need to be met with concerted action by the BBC,’ the BBC Trust added.

In a separate report published alongside the Pollard Review, the BBC Trust said Newsnight had failed to follow the BBC’s own editorial guidelines when broadcasting false claims that led to former Conservative Party treasurer Lord McAlpine being wrongly linked to child sex abuse allegations.

Mr Rippon is set to be replaced as Newsnight editor, as is his deputy.